Featured Museum, II

The Arts of in Seattle

Josh Yiu. A Fuller View of China: in the Seattle Art Museum. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2014. 192 pp. ISBN 978-0-932216-71-7.

Chinese Painting & [on-line catalog of the Seattle Art Museum collection]

hese two distinctive and excellent works intro- sources for high-quality Asian antiquities). The rela- T duce one the best collections of the arts of China tionship between and Central Asian in North America and serve as tributes to two vision- or Islamic-world metalwork is well documented, of ary directors of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). Rath- course. As James Watt observed, this small ewer “is er than write a “masterpieces” catalog, Josh Yiu offers the earliest Chinese carving to display Islamic in- an elegant study of the vision and collecting acumen fluence” (quoted, p. 31). It dates to a period when a of SAM’s founder, generous patron, and director for good many objects made of blue-and-white porcelain four decades, Richard Eugene Fuller, whose passion were decorated with Arabic inscriptions, and crafts- was Chinese art. And his impact went beyond the mu- men in China were not only catering to possibly new seum: in Yiu’s words (p. 21), “his work turned Seattle domestic tastes but also producing for specific export from a small town to the public-spirited urban city we markets in the Islamic world. know today.” Whereas Fuller was largely self-taught Fig. 1. Chinese nephrite ewer, late 15th-early 16th centuries. H: 8 in. in Asian art, Mimi Gardner Gates came to her direc- Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 33.77. torship in 1994 as a recognized academic specialist in Photograph by Daniel C. Waugh. , that expertise abundantly evident in the innovative on-line catalog (funded by the Get- ty Foundation) whose creation she and Josh Yiu su- pervised. SAM’s director until her retirement in 2009, Gates oversaw a major expansion of the museum, po- sitioning it as an innovative 21st-century institution. As curator of SAM’s Chinese collection for several years, Yiu became intimately familiar with the hold- ings and was able to sift the archives for documen- tation about acquisitions. The result is a compelling “life history” of the first decades of the Seattle collec- tion, from its infancy to adulthood, a history that is coterminous with the maturation of Richard Fuller as a collector. Inspired by his mother Margaret’s modest collection of Far Eastern objets d’art, Fuller developed an early interest in jade and snuff bottles, although that enthusiasm often led him to acquire objects he soon understood to be of limited artistic merit and which he then might happily de-acquisition.1 For stu- dents of exchange along the “silk roads” one of the he kept that is of particular interest is a Ming- period ewer [Fig. 1],2 which cost him $78 at Macy’s (yes, department stores in those days were often good

137 Text copyright © 2014 Daniel C. Waugh; image copyrights as specified The Silk Road 12 (2014): 137 – 152 + Color Plates X - XIII Copyright © 2014 The Silkroad Foundation While an early trip to China and then many years later a long encounter in Lon- don with a major visiting exhibition from China helped sharpen his acumen, to a considerable degree Fuller’s success lay in cultivating the right dealers. When asked about his collecting philosophy in later years, he emphasized that “the true value of art depends on an intangible aesthetic return, which varies with the knowledge and taste of each beholder” (quoted, p. 25). That is, the monetary value attached to a work of art was not the important thing. Indeed, one of the impressive facts which emerges here is how Fuller often swam against the tide of what was currently fashionable in acquisitions of Chinese art, with the result being that many of his lastingly significant purchases cost almost trivial sums. His “first important acquisition” (in 1918?), a tall Wanli period blue-and-white vase [Fig. 2; Color Plate X] cost all of $10 (p. 28). By 1932, when he was making considerable efforts to broaden the coverage of his collection and was increas- ingly discriminating, he would pay $500 for a Tang sculpture of a female polo player [Figs. 3, 4]. While now not an uncommon type (the Musée Guimet in Par- is has several wonderful examples), this piece occupies a prominent place in the Seattle collection of funerary figurines (mingqi). At the time Fuller acquired what is arguably the best of the tomb attendants in his collection [Fig. 5; Color Plate X], only one other example of the type was known, but as in the case of others of Fuller’s forward-looking acquisitions, subsequent archaeological ex- Fig. 2 (left). Wanli period porcelain vase, late 16th–early 17th century, H: 22.5 in. Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 54.120. Fig. 3 (below). The current display of Tang-era mingqi in SAAM. Fig. 4 (bottom left). Polo player, 7th-8th century, L: 14 in. Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 33.7. Fig. 5 (below right). Tomb attendant, late 7th century, H: 27.5 in. Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection , 35.6. Photographs by Daniel C. Waugh.

138 Fig. 6. Bronze hand censer, 7th century, Chinese. H: 2.5 in. (6.3 cm); L: 14 15/16 in. (37.94 cm); diam.: 4 3/8 in. (11.11 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 39.27. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. cavation has turned up almost identi- cal ones that help to contextualize the statue (p. 70). Even though such objects were very rare and not always correct- ly identified, when Fuller acquired his bronze censer (also Tang period) [Fig. 6] in 1939, he understood that it was to be compared with a famous one pre- served over the centuries in the Shosoin (p. 88). ing now houses only the Asian collections as the Seat- By the early 1930s, Fuller’s collection was already tle Asian Art Museum [SAAM]). significant, and, given the interest shown in Seattle Fuller understood clearly that the interests of a pri- at a special exhibit which highlighted it, he embarked vate collector were not necessarily the priorities that on an ambitious plan to replace the struggling Art were needed for a public museum (p. 49). So he set Institute of Seattle with a real public museum, the about broadening the acquisitions for the new mu- emphasis in whose collections would be Asian art (p. seum and increasingly trying to ensure that only the 46). He and his mother funded the construction of a highest quality works entered the collection. Despite new building in a hilltop park overlooking the city. the fact that much of the operating expenses of the To encourage public interest, and appropriate to its museum were being covered by the Fullers (who had focus, they acquired and installed in front of the se- deep but not bottomless pockets), there continued to vere Art Deco façade genuine statuary that had once be funds for purchases, and he had basically a free been part of a “spirit way” leading to a Chinese tomb hand in the decisions about what to buy.3 [Fig. 7]. The camels flanking the entrance became im- On the eve of the opening of the new museum in mediate hits, fully justifying Fuller’s instincts despite 1933, he acquired a set of remarkable embroidered silk the fact that some art critics rather disparaged their bed curtains which probably had been commissioned quality. The camels one sees there today are replicas by the Qianlong Emperor (1736–1795) [Fig. 8, next (still clambered over by children and senior citizens page; Color Plate XI]. Josh Yiu notes that they “may be and nowadays featured in selfies), the originals of the the best that exist” [p. 63]. Trips to Japan and London Seattle version of a “spirit way” having been moved in the mid-1930s both resulted in new acquisitions and indoors to the new downtown SAM building that contributed to the broadening of Fuller’s knowledge opened in 1991 [see Fig. 30 below] (the original build- of the field. As a result, Seattle now has one of several Fig. 7. The entrance to the original building of the Seattle Art Museum, elegant, large Song- or Jin-period wooden statues of a opened on June 23, 1933, as seen today. For a historic photo giving a seated Guanyin (Fig. 31 below; others are in London, sense of Fuller’s concept of the “spirit way,” see Yiu, Fig. 27, p. 47. Princeton and Kansas City). The catalyst for the visit Photograph by Daniel C. Waugh. to London was the opening of a major exhibition of art on loan from Chinese collections, which provided a unique opportu- nity to study a broad array of the fin- est works. Fuller’s purchases in Lon- don included another large wooden sculpture, a spirited Yuan-period evocation of a monk at the moment of Enlightenment [Fig. 9]. Perhaps more important for the broadening of the Seattle collection was the development of Fuller’s in- terest in painting. He acquired what was thought to be a Song-period landscape (Song paintings in gener- al are very rare and highly prized)

139 Fig. 8 (left). Bed curtains, Chinese, 1735–1796 (Qianlong period). Silk and gold thread, 107 x 70 3/4 in. (266.7 x 179.71 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 33.159.2. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. Fig. 9 (top right). Monk at the moment of Enlightenment, Chinese, ca. 14th century. Wood with polychrome decorations, 41 x 30 x 22 in. (104.14 x 76.2 x 55.88 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 36.13. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. Fig. 10 (right). Scholar gazing at the moon. Ma Yuan 馬遠 Tradition (15th century). Ink and color on silk. Overall: 116 1/4 x 48 5/16 in. (295.3 x 122.7 cm); Image: 78 x 41 3/4 in. (198.1 x 106 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 36.12. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. [Fig. 10; for detail see below, Fig. 28]. While it then turned out to be a later, Ming work, it remains one of the museum’s best paintings. Fuller’s cultivation of local patrons in Seattle eventually led to the donation (by Mrs. Donald E. Frederick) of a Song painting that is understandably one of the highlights of the collection [Fig. 11, next page]. Looking back on the time when he was advising the San Francisco Museum of Asian Art on its acquisitions, James Cahill has written somewhat ruefully about how an extraordinary album of land- scapes by the innovative late Ming artist Shao Mi 邵彌 [Fig. 12; Color Plate XIII], ended up in Seattle when he could not persuade the decision-makers in San Fran- cisco that it was worth buying.4 Later the acquisition of painting and calligraphy became one of the priori- ties of Mimi Gates. It took an honor roll of donors (she and her husband were among them) to add an import- ant poem scroll dated 1521 by 文徵 明 [Fig. 13]. Modern works of are now in the collection as well, one a couplet donated by the artist Xu Bing 徐冰 [Fig. 14] to honor Gates on the occasion of her retirement. 140 Fig. 11 (above). Hawk pursuing a pheasant, by Li Anzhong 李安忠, 1129– 30. Ink and color on silk. Image size: 43 1/2 x 16 in. (25.9 x 26.8 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Donald E. Frederick, 51.38. Photograph by Daniel C. Waugh. Fig. 12 (above right). “Landscape of dreams,” by Shao Mi 邵彌, 1638. One of ten album leaves: ink and color on paper. Overall: 11 7/16 x 17 in. (29 x 43.2 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 70.18.2. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. A number of the most important additions to the collection were made during the short period, 1948– 52, when Sherman Lee was Fuller’s assistant, hired at a time before he earned what would be a huge reputa- tion in the art world. This was a period when the mu- seum began to build a good collection of early bronzes [e.g., Fig. 15, next page] and became one of the first to

Fig. 13 (below). Poem for the painting “Sunset over the Jin and Jiao Moun- tains,” by Wen Zhengming 文徵明, 1521. Ink on paper. Overall size of scroll: 15 3/16 x 454 1/2 in. (38.5 x 1154.5 cm), a portion of which is shown here. Seattle Art Museum. Purchased in honor of Jay Xu and Jennifer Chen with funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Art Acquisition Endowment, Anonymous, Mimi and Bill Gates, The Asian Art Cuncil, Jef- frey and Susan Brotman, Lyn and Gerald Grinstein, Jane and David Davi, 2003.1. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. Fig. 14 (right). Couplet: “Learning from the Past, Moving Forward in Time,” by Xu Bing 徐冰, 2009. Calligraphy; ink on paper. Di- mensions: 53 1/2 x 13 3/4” each sheet. Seattle Art Museum, Gift of the artist in honor of Mimi Gardner Gates, 2010.7.2. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum.

141 If, when Fuller began, Seattle was on no one’s map for its Chinese collections, well before he retired in 1973 (he died three years later), what he had built was widely appreciated by specialists in Asian art, Fig. 15 (above). Bronze you (wine vessel), 11th century BCE (Western who paid tribute to his excellent taste and his ability Zhou period). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, to stretch limited financial resources so effectively in 56.33. Photograph by Daniel C. Waugh. a world when huge Fig. 16 (above right). Painted bowl, Chinese, 3rd century BCE. Wood with sums were now be- lacquer, 10 x 2 7/16 in. (25.4 x 6.19 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene ing lavished to ob- Fuller Memorial Collection, 51.118. tain what in lesser Photograph © Seattle Art Museum hands sometimes turned out to be develop a serious interest in lacquerware. Arguably works lacking in the most important example of the latter is a black- real merit. The Se- on-red dish dating to the Warring State period [Fig. 16; Color Plate XII], a piece found in a documented Fig. 17. Vase, 13th century excavation. Lee himself was a collector; the museum (Jin period). Stoneware with bought from him the superb, large Cizhou ware vase black decoration on white dating to the 13th century [Fig. 17], a work that has in- slip. H. 35 in. Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller spired both admiration and silly comments about its Memorial Collection 48.34. “vulgarity” (p. 129) on account of its fertility imagery. Photographs by Daniel C. The directors in Seattle clearly have an eye for talent, Waugh. but keeping it proves to be difficult. Lee moved on and up, to become director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Under Mimi Gates, the curator for Chinese art was Jay Xu, who organized a blockbust- er exhibition of the archaeological finds from Sanxingdui in Sichuan. Xu is now the director of the Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco. When Josh Yiu left Se- attle, it was to become Associate Director of the Art Museum of the Chinese Uni- versity of Hong Kong.

142 Fig. 18 (above left). The east wall of the atrium of the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Fig. 19 (above). Mi’raj, illustrated frontispiece from the Mahzan al-Asrar of Nizami (Book One of the Khamsa), ca. 1550–1600. Note the decorative Chinese cloud motif on the background. Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. Iranian (Safavid period). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 47.96. Fig. 20 (left). Figurine of a wine seller, 8th century (Tang period). Earthenware with polychrome glazes. H: 14 5/8 in. Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 38.6. Photographs by Daniel C. Waugh.

attle collection is by no means huge, but it contains excellent examples over a range of genres and periods. Fuller’s hand is to be found in all the other areas of Asian art in the museum’s holdings, from Gand- haran and later South and Southeast Asian sculpture (beautifully displayed in the atrium of SAAM, Fig. 18) to Islamic and Mughal miniatures (the subject of a cur- rent small exhibition in the adjoining room, Fig. 19). Before turning to questions of access and educa- tion about the collection, I will indulge in a few notes about some of the objects which, in addition to those already discussed, should be of considerable interest to students of the “silk roads.” Let’s begin [Fig. 20] 143 Fig. 21 (above left). Semitic peddler. Tang period (618–906). Ceramic with one of the most widely reproduced works in the with polychrome paint. Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial collection, a polychrome-painted earthenware depict- Collection, 33.19. ing a Semitic or Central Asian wine merchant. While Fig. 22 (above). Covered bowls in the shape of a five-petaled flower, with such figurines (generally made to accompany the floral patterns, late 8th-early 9th century (Tang period). Beaten silver with deceased into the afterlife and thus buried in tombs) gilt decoration. D: 9.5 in. Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial are among the most popular objects of art from Chi- Collection, 45.61.1-.2. na, the uniqueness of the Seattle wine merchant had Photographs by Daniel C. Waugh. raised questions as to its authenticity. Thermo-lumi- the British Museum (Museum Nos. OA 1973.7-26.192; nescence testing has confirmed now its early date to 1936.10-12.56) and the Musée Guimet (Museum No. the Tang period (p. 102, n. 105). Analogous to the wine MG 18260). Among the Tang period objects Fuller ac- merchant is another depiction of a foreigner, wear- quired is a pair of fine silver bowls with gilt decora- ing a peaked Central Asian cap and hunched under tion [Fig. 22] and a silver cup with a chased pattern of the burden he is carrying [Fig. 21]. He is quite sim- vegetation and birds, whose shape reflects the norms ilar to examples well known from the collections of of Sogdian silver from Central Asia [Fig. 23; Color Plate XII]. Opportunities to see such fine examples of Tang silver are rare.5 The Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty period in China in the 13th and 14th centuries is often considered to mark the epitome of cross-Asian trade (indeed, this was when Marco Polo and his father and uncle went from Italy to China and back). While eclectic in their religious beliefs, the Mongols in China cultivated close connec- tions with Tibetan . One apparent witness to that is a stunning gold- and silver-decorated bronze statue of a Buddha, which is distinguished by what Fig. 23. Cup, Chinese, late 7th to early 8th century. Silver, with chased patterns of lotus, vines, and birds. H: 2.5 in. (6.3 cm.); D: 3 in. (7.62 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 42.5. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum. 144 Fig. 24. Seated Buddha, Chinese, 14th [- 15th] century. Bronze with inlaid gold and silver thread. 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 3 in. (15.88 x 11.43 x 7.62 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 69.114. Pho- tograph © Seattle Art Museum.

Access and Education At the beginning of his book, Josh Yiu referred the reader to several published catalogs of the Seattle col- lection (p. 10). While ultimately one can expect that the museum’s website will provide complete on-line access, would not it make sense in the meantime to digitize these mostly out-of-print publications and link them to the website? For in fact, as the discussion which follows will elaborate, SAM’s online catalog is still very much work in progress and is far from com- plete. The brilliant exception here is the new online catalog of Chinese painting and calligraphy, created with the support of a grant from the Getty Foundation, which can be accessed from the top of the “Collections” page. Users would be advised first to click on “About” to learn about the goals of the project, stated as follows: …Seattle’s collection of 152 Chinese painting and calligraphy has never been studied in depth and is heretofore largely unpublished. For the first time, it is being introduced and made universally accessi- are variously described as Nepali or Indian features ble through this newly developed online catalogue, [Fig. 24]. Sherman Lee’s inclusion of it in an import- which features thoughtful and provocative essays ant exhibition in Cleveland on Chinese art under the about major works by renowned scholars, with Mongols helped persuade the experts that it is a Yuan- high-resolution, zoom-able images of the works of period work (p. 149). Most agree that the Yuan period art, and thorough documentation—including tran- also saw the full flowering of Chinese blue- and-white porcelain, with the production of large vessels suited to Mongol elite foodways and exhibiting a dense array of decorative mo- tifs. While Seattle has a good range of blue- and-white, arguably the most important of its pieces is a 14th-century charger (large dish or plate), which, unusually, has a raised, mould- ed design for the large flowers and a formally composed garden scene in the center featur- ing two phoenixes [Fig. 25].6 Major donations were necessary for the museum to be able to afford its purchase from Eskenazi in London in 1975.

Fig. 25. Dish with phoenix and flower motifs, early 14th cen- tury (Yuan period). Jingdezhen ware; porcelain with under- glaze cobalt-blue decoration. D: 18 3/4 in. Seattle Art Museum, purchased in memory of Elizabeth M. Fuller with funds from the Elizabeth M. Fuller Memorial Fund and from the Edwin W. and Catherine M. Davis Foundation, St. Paul, Minnesota, 76.7. Photograph by Daniel C. Waugh.

145 scriptions and translations of inscriptions and col- Yang Hui painting opens doors into poetry and the ophons, and seals which are transcribed, identified spiritual associations of plum blossoms. The reader and located…. learns how the painting’s attribution was confirmed This online catalogue is designed to facilitate and is introduced to a strikingly similar painting in scholarly dialogue. Readers are encouraged to post the National Palace Museum in . A separate comments about the works of art and the accom- set of links leads to related works in the Seattle collec- panying essays, as well as to formulate answers to tion. There are study questions, a listing of exhibitions questions that we put forward under the section and previous publications and additional bibliogra- “Questions for Thought.” phy. The zoom feature of the catalog, illustrated on The open-ended nature of the online catalogue the next page {Figs. 27, 28], is a marvel allowing one to represents a significant departure from the stan- seen the paintings in intimate detail or focus on seals dard printed catalogue. In contrast to printed cat- and inscriptions while reading their translations. alogues, which reflect a specific fixed moment in Like a reviewer of a detective novel, I would be de- time, the Seattle Art Museum considers the online priving readers of the pleasure of discovery were I catalogue an adaptable document that will contin- to devote much more space to this catalog. I would ue to evolve as the collection of Chinese painting note though that the essays I have examined close- and calligraphy grows. Moreover, in the future ly, while perhaps somewhat intimidating for general we hope other aspects of the Seattle Art Museum users where they include, appropriately, the Chinese collection will be researched, documented and en- characters along with translations of their texts, are tered online to complement this groundbreaking full of fascinating material which can help one better catalogue. appreciate more broadly Chinese art. Josh Yiu’s essay Before going on to explore the collection the user on Wen Zhenming’s poem scroll [Fig. 13 above] of- then is advised to watch the brief instructional tuto- fers many insights into the importance of calligraphy rial. The design and functionality here are first-rate, in . Yiu’s essay on the 2009 couplet with a range of filters on the left which let one select by the innovative contemporary artist Xu Bing [Fig. groups of works by artist, period, region, subject and 14 above] offers a fascinating account of the creation more. of this bold calligraphic piece. Another of the essays which struck me for its personal note, combined with It is appropriate that the first work which appears scholarly detachment, is James Cahill’s, to which I on a full page with tiles for each item in the collec- referred earlier, discussing Shao Mi’s album “Land- tion — the exquisite treatment of plum blossoms by scape of Dreams” [Fig. 12 above]. the 15th-century painter Yang Hui 楊輝 [Figs. 26, 27; Color Plate XIII] — is one for which Mimi Gates has There has been little time yet for users to take up written the long and scholarly analytical essay. Gener- the offer of interacting with SAM via this catalog and al readers may be satisfied with the opening summary posting comments. I have already sent some sugges- paragraph of essays such as hers, but if one chooses to tions to the museum staff (outside of the format of the “read more,” there is so much that can be learned. The catalog) regarding possible fixes for a few glitches, and they have been very respon- sive. One desideratum here would be for them to obtain permissions to use or link to larger images of the paintings cited for comparison in the es- says. Over time, I assume, that will become possible. In gen- eral, one of the as yet too rare features of museum collection

Fig. 26. “A branch of the cold season,” by Yang Hui 楊輝, ca, 1440. Ink on paper. Overall: 30 5/16 x 56 1/16 in. (77 x 142.4 cm); image: 12 3/16 x 25 in. (30.9 x 63.5 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 51.132. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum.

146 catalogs is cross-referencing and linking to examples in other collections. The beginning made here should inspire others. As should this catalog project as a whole. This clearly has to be the wave of the future into which more museums should move to make their collections accessible.

Fig. 27. Illustration of the capacity of the on-line catalog to enlarge and trans- late the poetry (above) and enlarge and translate the seals. These photograph screen shots, by Daniel C. Waugh, may show pixelated when printed here, even though on a high-resolution monitor at maximum zoom the sharpness is such that one can even see the paper or fabric structure. The translations and other information scroll down on the right panel

Fig. 28 (below). A photograph screen shot at maxi- mum zoom showing detail from the painting of the scholar gazing at the moon (Fig. 10 above; Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 36.12).

147 It would be nice to be able to lavish similar praise on ently still not in place; it seems likely that much more the SAM website as an access point to other parts of needs to be done to equip the system to handle alter- the Chinese collection. The website has recently been native designations that a casual user might put into redesigned, and work on it is ongoing, which means the quick search box. The most refined chronological that the comments which folliow here undoubtedly divisions under dynasties generally are problematic, will soon be dated. At least as of this writing, there especially since datings by dynasty are so problemat- is still much to be done before the Seattle collection ic to begin with and because the descriptive verbiage is fully available and easily searchable on-line. These in the captioning may not necessarily correspond to remarks are intendeed to present a kind of “user’s per- the category breakdown offered in the search tool. spective” as of the end of 2014, one which may say as “Porcelain” as a search term may not bring up all that much about the user as about the website itself.7 is captioned as porcelain. “Earthenware” is a useful The “Collections” web page by department includes term, but when should one apply it under “material” a link to Asian Art, where there are relatively few instead of just doing a more general search under the highlighted objects on the page. Only 14 of these are “classification” of “ceramic”? Is there any consistent from the Chinese collection, and very few of those idea of what is a “vessel” as opposed to a “dish” or are items which are currently on display in the mu- “bowl”? The country listings lack “China” (!); so the seum. It seems in fact that the indication of whether way to get Chinese artefacts is to insert “Chinese” any object listed in the online database is on display as the supplementary search term under the rubric is not being kept up to date (case in point, Doug Ait- “people.” I tried several different ways to bring up ken’s “Mirror” installation on the outside of the new the link to the page about my favorite figurine of the SAM wing). While the arrangement of the tiles in the wine merchant, but he did not always appear when I display groups them alphabetically by the rubric for would have expected to find him. The most general “people” (Chinese, Japanese, etc.), it would have been searches are likely to bring up the most options. E.g., good to have distinct specific pages for each of those just look for works attributed to the “Tang Dynasty,” sub-categories. That then would allow for expanding or do a query for the “classification” of “bronzes” and the selection of highlighted works without requir- add the supplementary criterion, “Chinese” — which ing the user to do excessive scrolling to pick an ob- then brings up an impressive number of items, more ject. In clicking on any of these tiles, the user brings than I had been aware the collection holds. up a separate page, containing one or more images. Clearly some of these problems can be at least mit- None are enlargeable, which is unfortunate, though igated if there would be an explanatory page for the some offer close-ups of detail. Are the main images search categories being offered and a more detailed anywhere near large enough? — the Freer and Sack- indication of search strategies. But I wonder if the ler Galleries in D.C. are poised to make available their problems may lie deeper in the coding for the objects entire collection in high resolution downloadable im- or the search algorithms. There is certainly some in- ages, and they are not unique in this. Included on the consistency in captions, where I assume for each item SAM website are outdated photos from the museum a term has been entered in the appropriate line on a archive that are inferior to the newer ones and might spread-sheet that then provides a searchable file. I well have been dropped. The standard for verbal de- would not suggest that the problems I encountered scriptions is a usually brief, and if so, not always very here are unique, but at least some other museums informative paragraph. For many interesting objects may have figured out some solutions. In sum, at least in the collection (e.g., the early Chinese bronzes), as for now it takes a lot of work and guessing to locate yet there are no descriptive paragraphs at all. on-line what in fact seems to be a quite extensive cata- When I realized that the limited array of “highlight” loguing of the Chinese collection in Seattle (note, how- objects was not going to get me to other parts of the ever, many of the items listed as yet lack photos or any Chinese collection (aside from the thorough coverage kind of meaningful description). in the new online catalog of the paintings discussed Beyond a mere catalog description with a short para- above), I tried various search strategies using the graph, what else might one hope eventually to find on a “Search Collection” link. Could I easily locate “Chi- good web page for any object? I would think we need nese blue-and-white porcelain” or “Tomb figurines,” some linked introductory essays (e.g., one on calligra- since both categories include items of interest for the phy, one on the different types of ritual bronzes) and history of the silk roads? While part of the problem more comparative examples. Should one happen to was the learning curve for a new user, I concluded stumble on the page provided for the wonderful Yuan that the search mechanism may still need of a lot of blue-and-white charger discussed earlier, one finds in work. The “thesaurus” that would allow one to figure fact a number of complementary, informative para- out what term to use for certain categories is appar- graphs and some comparative photos. That page as it 148 Fig. 29. The display of many of Richard Fuller’s snuff bottles, in the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Photograph by Daniel C. Waugh .

ucational resources which many of them have created. A substan- tial annotated listing of portals to major internet resources can in fact be found linked to the SAM’s “Programs and Leaning” pages . What I have in mind here as a desideratum though is the specific kinds of focused learning pages, of- ten interactive, which naturally take a huge amount of time to produce. Unless one is provided with direct stands is where the user interested in blue-and-white links to them where they relate to a given object in the might well start. But how is he or she to know? If a collection, one may not be aware they exist. visitor to Seattle wanted to see its good collection of SAM has begun to move in this direction. In its small Asian ceramics he or she should also be aware that Islamic exhibit in the downtown museum, there is a what is displayed, but a fraction of the whole, is di- little computerized set of pages to introduce visitors vided between SAAM and a porcelain room (mainly to Islamic art. All that material seems to have made it focused from the European perspective) in the down- into the online catalog, including the audio recordings town museum. It is in the latter that some of the exam- of a curator discussing a particular topic. When SAM ples of “kraack” wares, the export blue-and-white of mounted in the downtown museum a beautifully cu- the late Ming period, are to be found. One can, at least, rated exhibition (“Luminous”) of its best treasures of download a pdf file on the porcelain room ahead of a Asian art after they had returned from touring in Ja- visit, in order to see exactly what is in it.8 Apart from a pan, I was very impressed by the computerized dis- rather extensive display of Richard Fuller’s snuff bot- play which had been created to explain the extraordi- tles in SAAM [Fig. 29], I think that porcelain room is nary Japanese “Deer Scroll” in the Seattle collection. the closest thing we have here to a “study collection.” That interactive display offers information about One specifically for Chinese ceramics would be highly poets, translations of the poems, the ability to zoom desirable. in to look at details, etc. (that is, very like what one On a very few of the caption pages for individual can do in the new on-line catalog of painting). The objects, along with bibliographic references, are links “Deer Scroll” feature is available on the SAM website to explanatory pages on other museums’ websites. So now and linked on the collections page for the scroll far this barely hints at what might be possible. In one . Another on- handful of the early Chinese bronzes, there is an in- line resource, accessible from “Collections Resources” teractive monitor where one can follow the process is pdf files of the papers given at a symposium on of how a bronze was cast. This was created by the “Masterpieces of Japanese Painting.” There is also Princeton Art Museum . Buddhist Art—Seeking the Sublime.” but the link to A link to this resource could be added in the on-line it seems to be dead. catalog pages for Seattle’s Chinese bronzes. Princeton An important part of Mimi Gates’s legacy is the has another page with a similar interactive learning Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas at SAAM, es- tool for making a Cizhou ceramic vessel , which would be good to connect has forged close relationships with the relevant aca- somehow with the several fine examples in Seattle. demic programs at the University of Washington and There have to be numerous possibilities here for has been expanding considerably on an earlier legacy reaching out to other museums and sharing the ed- that dates back to the time of Richard Fuller, when he 149 would give public lectures on Seattle’s Asian art. Any joining modern office tower in 2007, the main entrance good museum nowadays takes its educational mis- being in the new wing — a move that was essential to sion seriously, something that arguably was always SAM’s future — both staircase (rightfully) and Chi- foremost in Fuller’s mind. nese sculptures (sadly) languish largely unnoticed.9 On the other hand, the idea of luring the public to ex- I can recall participating several decades ago in a perience art by bringing art to the public is certainly in grant-funded NEH program for teachers involving accord with Fuller’s vision, even if now what one sees University of Washington outreach programs and on the street is Jonathan Borovsky’s huge “Hammer- SAM that focused on “objects of trade.” My wife still ing Man” sculpture with its motorized arm and Doug has vivid memories of a workshop allowing partic- Aitkin’s recently installed digital display, “Mirror,” ipants to learn about Chinese ceramics and actually that wraps around part of the new wing of the muse- handle some of the objects in the collection. Apart um. Fuller might have welcomed this as necessary for from a regular array of films and performances rang- the greater good of a successful public museum. ing from the Southeast Asian version of “The Vagi- na Monologues” to traditional Afghan music, one of As the neighboring Seattle Symphony has also de- the star attractions of the Gardner Center now is its termined, to bring in new audiences seems to require “Saturday University” lectures, each series exploring an emphasis on the modern and postmodern. Cer- a broadly-based theme that generally will connect his- tainly this message is reinforced in the lobby of the toric cultural traditions with the present. One that I new SAM, where one stands, somewhat nervously, was involved in on Central Asia attracted an overflow under Cai Guo-Qiang’s 蔡国强 eye-catching “Inop- audience of hundreds. The most recent one, which portune: Stage One” 2004, “a large-scale installation filled every week the 200-seat auditorium, explored work consisting of a meticulous arrangement of life- science and technology in East Asia. Christopher size cars and multichannel tubes that seem to blow up Cullen of the Needham Institute in Cambridge intro- in sequence, symbolizing a series of car explosions.” duced the series and played a key role in the selection Indeed, work by modern Chinese artists occupies an of topics and speakers. important place in the museum: one room in SAAM has been featuring Ai Weiwei’s 艾未未 “Colored Vas- Into the 21st century es” (2010), and the larger gallery that at one time held Fuller’s collection of mingqi, hosted a temporary ex- I have to wonder a bit whether Richard Fuller, whose hibit of Chen Shao-xiong’s 陈劭雄 “Ink, History, Me- view of Chinese art shaped the first decades of SAM, dia,” a captivating display of video and ink drawings would be comfortable with the 21st-century muse- created from historic photos. The southern galleries of um which has grown out of those ambitious begin- SAAM currently host the work of the Japanese Neo- nings. He probably would rue the fact that the “spirit Pop artist who goes by the professional name of Mr., way” sculptures he installed to lure the public into timed presumably to coordinate with the downtown his new museum have now been moved indoors in museum’s “Pop Departures” exhibit. I have not yet an infamous “stairway to nowhere” that Venturi and had time to explore a new exhibit on at SAAM from Associates designed for the new downtown museum late December until mid-June in 2015: “Conceal/Re- building that opened in 1991 [Fig. 30].9 With the fur- veal: Making Meaning in Chinese Art.” It promises to ther expansion of the downtown museum into the ad- connect older and newer traditions. This new emphasis on the modern clearly strains the existing gallery space, although fortunately many of the best items in the older part of the Chinese col- lection (in the first instance, ones acquired by Fuller) are still to be seen, in the company of some outstand- ing similar works from private collections that one can hope eventually will be donated to the muse- um. Over the last year or two, for example, there has been a lovely selection of celadons, including some of

Fig. 30. The “grand staircase” (a.k.a. “Art Ladder”) in the Venturi wing of SAM, the statues having been moved from in front of the original SAM building in Volunteer Park. The camels are out of sight farther up the stairs. Photo by Joe Mabel. Source: .

150 dramatic size. It is not as though the Fig. 31. Images from SAM’s “Lumi- historic core of the Seattle collection is nous” exhibition. Left to right: In really being consigned to the dustheap the foreground of a display of Bud- of history. Josh Yiu’s book was pub- dhist sculpted heads, a late 7th–early lished in conjunction with a like-named 8th-century (Tang period) head of a exhibition in SAAM that highlighted Fuller’s legacy. Buddha (Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 39.29); detail from a statue “Luminous” , one of the best recent exhibitions held Memorial Collection, 35.17); a standing Bodhisattva, early 8 century in the large galleries of the downtown museum, dis- (Tang period) (Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection 34.64). Photographs by Daniel C. Waugh. played SAM’s masterpieces of Asian art after they had returned from a successful tour in Japan [Fig. 31]. The spectful of the existing architecture and its surround- exhibition included an inspired installation commis- ing park, a space that then could allow much more sioned from contemporary artist Do Ho of the Asian collections to be Suh , through manent basis. After all, we which the visitor passed to be met by the can continue to be inspired remarkable early 17th-century Japanese by the “intangible aesthetic painted screens depicting “Crows,” yet return” of the objects Fuller another of Richard Fuller’s important acquired, such as this evoc- acquisitions. Thus one could experience ative dry lacquer head of a what was expressed in Xu Bing’s couplet luohan [Fig. 32], which I first presented to Mimi Gates on her retire- saw years ago in the base- ment: “Learning from the past, Moving ment storage rooms but to forward in time” (or its reverse: “Learn- our good fortune is currently ing from the present, moving backward on display. So many of these in time”?). works invite us to return and contemplate them anew on Yet one can dream of the day when every visit. one of Seattle’s philanthropically gen- -- Daniel C. Waugh erous moguls, far better heeled than University of Washington (Seattle) Richard Fuller ever was, would allocate even a fraction as much for Asian art in Fig. 32. Head of a Luohan, 10th–12th the city as for, say, basic science research century (Song period). Dry lacquer or, heaven help us, a professional sport and glass. H: 17 1/4 in. Eugene Fuller franchise. A visionary donation might Memorial Collection 40.20. Photo- make possible an addition to SAAM re- graph by Daniel C. Waugh.

151 Notes ently only one roughly analogous example of a Yuan-era blue- and-white porcelain with the raised flowers in the design 1. His collection of snuff bottles that remain in the museum (Museum no. 1951.1012.1). The famous collection of Safavid is still recognized as being a very important one. See Fig. 29. Shah Abbas at Ardebil had a dish with a nearly identical design in the outer rings (including the raised floral images) 2. Note that the ewer is green, even if Yiu’s book, Fig. 12, p. but a central design that only very selectively replicates a 32, depicts it as gray. motif found on the dish in Seattle. The Topkapi Saray collec- 3. The Fuller legacy in the collections is denoted under two tion in Istanbul, has a dish with a much more closely related important rubrics. His own collection and the purchases for design in the center, but which otherwise is different. The the museum which grew it bear not his name but rather that Ardebil and Topkapi dishes are nos. A.15 and T.15 respec- of his father: “The Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection.” An tively in T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near endowment in his mother’s name is “The Margaret E. Fuller East: Topkapi and Ardebil, 3 vols. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Purchase Fund.” Univ. Pr., 1981). 4. See his essay on the album which was commissioned for 7. I should also qualify my remarks by stressing that I have the on-line catalog of the Seattle paintings. accessed the web pages only using a desktop computer with a mouse. I assume the redesign of the website in part is to 5. Both the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert in accommodate access by mobile and other touch-screen de- London have quite a few pieces of Tang silver, but of dif- vices. ferent forms or techniques. A dish in the Musée Guimet is very similar to one of the Seattle dishes. One of the more 8. The guide to the Wyckoff porcelain gallery is . An excellent overview of porcelain, draw- the best pieces being bought for a museum in Qatar. The ing extensively on Seattle’s collections, is Julie Emerson, Jen- item most similar to Fuller’s, was a covered dish bought nifer Chen, and Mimi Gardner Gates, Porcelain Stories: From by the famed London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi for nearly China to Europe (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum in association 1.6 million British pounds. It is lot 64 and may be viewed with University of Washington Press, 2000). on-line . For a somewhat sensationalized tectural plans. In effect, Venturi re-cycled his design for the news account of the sale, see Suren Melikian, “Whiff of mys- Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery in London, where tery hangs over sale of China objects,” The New York Times, the “grand staircase” actually connects in a meaningful way May 23, 2008 , accessed 3 December 2014. situated outdoor sculpture park overlooking Puget Sound 6. The rareness of the Seattle dish is indicated by the fact that and the Olympic Mountains. in the huge collection of the British Museum, there is appar-

152 PLATE X Waugh, “Arts of China,” p. 138.

Vase. Chinese, late 16th – early 17th century. Tomb attendant. Chinese, late 7th century. Porcelain with molded and underglaze-blue Earthenware with glaze, gilt, and paint. 27 1/2 decorations. 22 1/2 x 9 3/4 in. (57.2 x 24.77 cm). x 11 x 10 5/8 in. (69.85 x 27.94 x 26.99 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 54.120. Collection, 35.6. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum Photograph © Seattle Art Museum PLATE XI Waugh, “Arts of China,” p. 140.

Bed curtains, Chinese, 1735–1796 (Qianlong period). Silk and gold thread, 107 x 70 3/4 in. (266.7 x 179.71 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 33.159.2. Photograph © Seattle Art Museum PLATE XII Waugh, “Arts of China,” pp. 142, 144.

(top) Painted bowl, Chinese, 3rd century BCE. Wood with lacquer, 10 x 2 7/16 in. (25.4 x 6.19 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 51.118. (bottom) Cup, Chinese, late 7th to early 8th century. Silver, with chased patterns of lotus, vines, and birds. H: 2.5 in. (6.3 cm.); D: 3 in. (7.62 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 42.5. Photographs © Seattle Art Museum PLATE XIII Waugh, “Arts of China,” pp. 141, 146.

(top) “Landscape of dreams,” by Shao Mi 邵彌, 1638. One of ten album leaves: ink and color on paper. Overall: 11 7/16 x 17 in. (29 x 43.2 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 70.18.2. (bottom) “A branch of the cold season,” by Yang Hui 楊輝, ca, 1440. Ink on paper. Overall: 30 5/16 x 56 1/16 in. (77 x 142.4 cm); image: 12 3/16 x 25 in. (30.9 x 63.5 cm). Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 51.132. Photographs © Seattle Art Museum